I recently commented on a Twitter post that proposed the question, if you had $100 million dollars what three assets would you invest in over the next 5-years.
Here is a snapshot of how I responded:
There was a frightening majority of people who said “Bitcoin” for all three. I’m quite enthusiastic about crypto currencies and emerging fintech, but the point I’m making here, if it wasn’t obvious, is you are better off “investing in yourself”.
This has become my new battle cry, even though it’s a concept that’s not new or groundbreaking.
However, I’m taking it one-step further and suggesting that you “double-down on yourself”.
Look at the state of things, could there be any better time than now to go “ALL-IN ON YOU“?
Perhaps your livelihood was stripped from you because of mandatory lockdowns in 2020.
Maybe working from home shined a light on how much time and energy you waste at your job, allowing you to rediscover your hobbies and passions in your newly acquired spare time.
With the world flipped upside-down, and eyes wide open, people changed their careers, changed their relationships, changed where they lived, and changed their priorities.
Some of these choices maybe came out of necessity, which is often how the best ideas and businesses are born.
Meanwhile, our social circles, perhaps for the first-time, are encouraging these bold changes. Whereas before, the lack of support probably held a lot of people back from taking that leap of faith into something new and meaningful.
It’s not easy making big changes in life, especially when friends and family are on the fence.
Broader empathy for pivoting and living in the moment has probably helped countless people to seek new inspiration, or follow their dreams.
And why not bet on yourself, with the extra support now in your corner what do you really have to lose?
In fact, we need to reevaluate how we calculate risk. It is a zero-interest rate world, and we are no longer appropriately rewarded for making conservative decisions or being fiscally responsible.
This has created a new era of YOLO investing. (YOLO = You Only Live Once).
When considering how to invest your time and capital, the incentives are inappropriately skewed towards chasing asset bubbles in markets you probably don’t understand, or care about personally, simply because of FOMO. (FOMO = Fear Of Missing Out).
We have become a population of anxiety driven profit seekers.
We have all become The Wolf of “Some” Street. Corrupted, each in our own way, by greed and fear, absent of any meaning or purpose for why we are making a particular “investment” in the first place.
This isn’t investing, it’s gambling in a rigged “winner-take-all” game where the odds are not in your favor.
With the cards clearly stacked against you, and with your last chips in hand, it’s time to exit the casino and double-down on what makes YOU special.
Ironically, this isn’t even that risky anymore, given the alternatives.
Instead of YOLO’ing into something you don’t understand, in a market where the outcome you can’t control, driven by fear-based decisions, take back control and start investing in yourself.
Put that money to work learning a skill or trade, and not just because it will be in demand, but because it is something you have always wanted to master.
Perhaps you have a special talent that has been dormant because you chased a life plan designed by someone else, long before you had the self-awareness to decide what is best for you.
Well, now is your chance to reset.
The careers and jobs we pursue early on in life are like an apprenticeship program while we fine tune our God-given gifts, or until we wake up and realize they are being neglected.
For a lot of people 2020 was a long overdue awakening.
However, if you’re contemplating a change don’t be a job seeker, be a soul seeker, and reconnect with your purpose and your passions.
Sure, change can be hard, and the life of an entrepreneur isn’t easy. However, trying and failing is a better outcome than staying on a path that leaves you feeling uncertain or unfulfilled.
Perhaps the real risk is living with permanent regret because when presented with the “opportunity” of two roads you stayed your course, instead of doubling-down and going ALL-IN on yourself.
“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.”
~ Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken
